I received a box of rocks today.

[NY_Caveman]

I was away for a few days. The ATO, lights and skimmer were all fine while I was gone and for three days there were zero feedings of any kind. As expected, leaving the tank completely unattended led to an outbreak of good things. All forms of algae have receded and almost all fish and corals are looking well. The only negative thing was the second head of our hammer coral died. The hammer was in the tank for six weeks. One head died and the other met its demise about 10 days later. The corals that came in the same order are all doing very well. So far, our only unexplained casualties were all three shrimp and now the Hammer coral. The Duncans are looking much better, but still have not fully opened to my expectations.

Over the past week I added a few more Trochus snails and to add variety I added some small Nerites. I do not expect the Nerites to do much really, but their tiny size will allow them to get to detritus in some tighter spots. I also added some Turbo snails. I ordered ten from LiveAquaria and requested 1" or less in size. They sent me six 2" snails. Hmmm... oh well, we will see how they fare. I only worry because none of my rocks are secured by anything other than gravity. A 2" Turbo may be able to move a supporting piece. We shall see.

The last thing to note is I did a major equipment cleaning when I returned from our trip. The gyre and skimmer were disassembled and vigorously cleaned and the back chambers were scrub brushed well. The gyre and skimmer were not as bad as I expected, but both are flowing through better. I find the Chaetomorpha LED is causing a good amount of Cyanobacteria in that back area, so I will need to keep on that before it blocks or covers the Chaeto.

That is all for now. I forgot to take pictures today, so maybe I will get some tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

 

[SPR1968]

was away for a few days. The ATO, lights and skimmer were all fine while I was gone and for three days there were zero feedings of any kind. As expected, leaving the tank completely unattended led to an outbreak of good things.

Yes it’s funny how this is often the case. I’ve been away for 7-10 days and got back and apart from the glass needing cleaning the tank hasn’t missed me at all! Lol

I spent the first year or so constantly fiddling with things, and changing stuff.......

 

[NY_Caveman]

Yes it’s funny how this is often the case. I’ve been away for 7-10 days and got back and apart from the glass needing cleaning the tank hasn’t missed me at all! Lol

I spent the first year or so constantly fiddling with things, and changing stuff.......

Right! I am trying to avoid fiddling for fiddling’s sake. Everything is “set up” now so really my concerns should be feed, maintain and monitor.

 

[Dj City]

Im glad everything is going well. Your tank is established!
Good growth and healthy fish and corals.

Im waiting for my buld to settle down and be on autopilot.
I still have a long way to go.

Your tank encourages me.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Im glad everything is going well. Your tank is established!
Good growth and healthy fish and corals.

Im waiting for my buld to settle down and be on autopilot.
I still have a long way to go.

Your tank encourages me.

And yours me!

Honestly, I am trying to do as little as possible, like when I first started 100 years ago. I know it can work. So far every time I think I need to tweak something, the tank reminds me to stop tweaking.

By tweaking, I mean, adding a doser is good, but adding KNO3 because I worry about an imbalance (when inhabitants are not complaining) is potentially bad (and I added so little!).

Anyway, my system has had some growing pains and there will be more. We still enjoy it every single day.

Apologies for all of the (parenthesis), italics and other nonsense.

 

[Victoria M]

Lol. That is great that things maintained in your absence.

 

[RichtheReefer21]

I went away for a week and came back to a green tank with hair like an 80's motley cruel fan.

Sorry to hear about the hammer. Always sucks to lose a nice coral.

 

[najer]

And yours me!

Honestly, I am trying to do as little as possible, like when I first started 100 years ago. I know it can work. So far every time I think I need to tweak something, the tank reminds me to stop tweaking.

By tweaking, I mean, adding a doser is good, but adding KNO3 because I worry about an imbalance (when inhabitants are not complaining) is potentially bad (and I added so little!).

Anyway, my system has had some growing pains and there will be more. We still enjoy it every single day.

Apologies for all of the (parenthesis), italics and other nonsense.

You know I love minimum intervention, they told me I couldn't do it my way so I set out to prove them wrong!

 

[NY_Caveman]

Picture Dump

 

[RichtheReefer21]

Looking awesome

 

[NY_Caveman]

Almost forgot, here are parameters from this morning

10/11/18

NO3 = 4 ppm
PO4 = 0.067 ppm (22 ppb)
Ca = 440 ppm
dKH = 8.0
pH = 8.3

Everything is looking good to me and trending the right way, except Alkalinity is still down. I had added Kalkwasser to the ATO jug. I started at 1/2 teaspoon per gallon, but it seems I am getting less evaporation over the past week or so. The ATO went from about 1/2 gallon a day to less than 1/4 of a gallon. I bumped the solution up last week slowly until saturation of 2 teaspoons per gallon.

My testing shows that my tank is using about 3ppm of Calcium daily. The Alkalinity consumption is about 0.7 dKH per day, but this is rising (from 0.5 dKH eight days ago). Adding 10 SPS frags could do that I suppose.


Since returning from our trip I have been having to add some Soda Ash solution to catch up. I just got the Jebao DP-2 doser, but being away I did not have time to set it up. I want to get the Kalkwasser dosing on its own separate from the ATO this weekend for some consistency. I do NOT want to do anything long term that might impact the ATO line and pump.

 

[Raege]

Your BTA is looking awesome.

 

[NY_Caveman]

Looking awesome

Your BTA is looking awesome.

Thank you and thank you!

I should note I am continuing to bump the LED 5% a week. By the end of the month the anemone should be getting 225 PAR and the SPS island between about 200 and 325 PAR.

 

[Janci]

Almost forgot, here are parameters from this morning

10/11/18

NO3 = 4 ppm
PO4 = 0.067 ppm (22 ppb)
Ca = 440 ppm
dKH = 8.0
pH = 8.3

Everything is looking good to me and trending the right way, except Alkalinity is still down. I had added Kalkwasser to the ATO jug. I started at 1/2 teaspoon per gallon, but it seems I am getting less evaporation over the past week or so. The ATO went from about 1/2 gallon a day to less than 1/4 of a gallon. I bumped the solution up last week slowly until saturation of 2 teaspoons per gallon.

My testing shows that my tank is using about 3ppm of Calcium daily. The Alkalinity consumption is about 0.7 dKH per day, but this is rising (from 0.5 dKH eight days ago). Adding 10 SPS frags could do that I suppose.


Since returning from our trip I have been having to add some Soda Ash solution to catch up. I just got the Jebao DP-2 doser, but being away I did not have time to set it up. I want to get the Kalkwasser dosing on its own separate from the ATO this weekend for some consistency. I do NOT want to do anything long term that might impact the ATO line and pump.

Parameters are looking good.
I like that pH is that high.

 

[NY_Caveman]

TIME IN: 12.5 Months
ROCKS WET: 10 Months
TANK WET: 3.5 Months

Snails
The snails I added are really impressing me. I mentioned I added some more Trochus and, for the first time, some Turbos. In total we have:

4 Trochus
6 huge Turbos
4 Ceriths
4 tiny Nerites​

My display is essentially a 30 gallon tank, so that is 14 good sized algae and detritus eaters. The 4 Nerites I only consider as detritus eaters for the tight spots although they will clean film algae off the glass. In the past week this crew has almost picked the tank clean. All that is left is a little bit of hair algae on on some of the whiter dry shelf rock I had matured since the beginning. Not sure if the Turbos are killing it, or if I just needed to beef up the CUC in general, but I am happy none the less. I love peeking at the tank after dark when the snails are very active all over the tank. Especially the Ceriths which I generally only see now at night. I will probably have to start feeding some seaweed again once a week, but that is fine with me.

Dosing
Changing the subject I have caught myself before making a huge mistake. One of those obvious things that get mixed up in your head when you are planning and maintaining any large system. I wanted to start dosing Kalkwasser separate from my ATO. My original thought was get 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of Kalk into the ATO immediately before going away last weekend, then set up the doser with 2 teaspoons per gallon of Kalk and set it to dose accordingly. As I mentioned, I ended up boosting the ATO to 2 teaspoons per gallon already as I was seeing less evaporation and greater demand. Can you see my near mistake yet? I was about to set up the doser for Kalk yesterday, as I originally planned. It suddenly occurred to me, if I need more Kalk than I am getting from a saturated ATO and dose that amount, I will be diluting my salinity. Nice catch! It is obvious, but one of those, “Oh yeah, right” moments we all have in a dynamic system.

The more I thought about it, dosing Kalkwasser seemed like a smart idea at first, to preserve the ATO equipment, but if evaporation continues to fluctuate as much as in the past, there is no reason not to go straight to two part dosing. I have all of the chemicals anyway for two part, so why not just be precise for everything.

One further note on this. The biggest surprise to me has been the demand I am seeing on a new tank with mostly small corals and frags. It really caught me off guard. I think the thing I really underestimated was coralline algae. Starting with rich purple and pink live rock has contributed hugely to demand for Alkalinity (and of course Calcium is related to that).

All said, I was very happy with the tank this week. Fish all look healthy and fat. Corals are fluffy or showing polyps extended and responding to spot feedings. Even the Duncan coral is coming out much more than I have ever seen it.

SPS
Last thing, I am posting this image to help me gauge SPS growth in the future. The fragments all look good, but the Stylophora and the Millepora are actually already showing growth. Pretty awesome!

With names

 

[NY_Caveman]

Parameters are looking good.
I like that pH is that high.

Funny, I expected some fluctuation after I started Kalkwasser and then further adding some 2 part manually and pH has remained pretty stable. Slow and steady wins it I guess.

 

[Raege]

Very nice

 

[NY_Caveman]

... and here they are, under blues

 

[Raege]

Remember there are no mistakes just happy little accidents. Brought to you by Bob Ross the voice of Demerol

 

[NY_Caveman]

I have been trying to get fish pictures all week. I have been posting a lot of corals and FTS, but been a while since I focused on fish. Mostly because my iPhone camera is not great and fish move faster than corals.

Ruby

Skyler

Nemo

Not great, but nice to show them off. Here are a couple of other critters

Hope you enjoyed them!